same spirit animate both men and women, and that love is the pairing of equals in these spheres. . . . The famous plea that women ought not to be confined 'to making pudding and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags' [Chap. 12] is not propaganda for equal employment but for a recognition of woman's emotional nature. The condemnation of women to a place apart results in the creation of empty, capricious women like Blanche Ingram, who tyrannize over men whenever possible, indulge in dreams of Corsair lovers, and can communicate only in the Byronic language of outdated romantic fiction. Only equals like Jane and Rochester dare to speak truth couched in language of unadorned directness".
Methinks Mr. Martin misses the point: feminism in its essence is a liberation of women in every realm of life, including romantic love. It doesn't just have to concern equal pay, equal jobs, and equal rights. Besides, romance is as political as anything else in human society. Its powers just lie in a different realm.
Apart from issues of gender, Brontd's other themes concern class, money, and religion (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre, 2005). Being a homeless orphan, Jane suffers constant humiliation and rejection due to traditional English class prejudice, and her lack of money û and her principled refusal to accept it from Mr. Rochester, even when she needs it the most û results in her nearly starving to death after she leaves Thornfield Hall.
Intrinsically tied to class and money are matters of religion, and she skewers her contemporary pious hypocrites so effectively one realizes her presence is sorely needed in contemporary America. After all, anyone who can baldly state "Conventionality is not morality". Self-righteousness is not religion", as she does in the preface to Jane Eyre in answer to her sanctimonious critics is fully capable of putting George W. Bush, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwall and their psychicall...